Lake Cowichan Fire Department were the winners of the annual slo-pitch tournament held at Mesachie Lake Skydome this past weekend.
The tournament sees firefighters from all across the South Island come together each year for a weekend of celebrations and ball action in order to raise as much money as possible for Muscular Dystrophy Canada.
Once again, the Mesachie Group knocked one out of the park in raising over $36,000 through the tournament and auction.
The group chose MDC as its charity of choice back in 1979, making this the 36th annual tournament.
The auction alone raised $36,000, confirmed tournament organizer Dwain King from Ladysmith Fire Department.
“The grand total is not yet in but the auction raised $36,000,” he said. “We’ll add the concession and everything else to that soon and get the grand total.
“We are extremely happy, it’s a very healthy number and it was a great weekend.”
King and his colleagues from Ladysmith actually made it all the way through to the final matchup against Lake Cowichan, in what was a rematch of last year’s final.
Unlike last year though, it was Lake Cowichan that came out on top, in such a comprehensive victory people stopped keeping score in the end up.
One Ladysmith player was noted as saying “we just don’t have that extra gear that we normally do,” out in the field of play.
At one point Lake Cowichan was up by over 11 runs.
“They beat us soundly,” said King.
The victory was somewhat of a revenge for LCFD, all friendly of course, after Ladysmith won last year’s final 19-15.
King described the weekend as “very successful” with Skydome surrounded by RVs and various motor homes the entire time.
“We couldn’t have asked for a better event and the weather held off nicely.”
The tournament’s awards were presented at the conclusion of the final on Sunday afternoon.
The MVP award went to Blair Windsor of Ladysmith FD.
The award of Most Sportsmanlike Team was presented to a team of Honeymoon Bay and Youbou combined.
King also confirmed that the skit competition was won by Lake Cowichan Fire Department, rounding off an incredibly successful weekend for the Lake fighters in particular.
